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How Many People Work in Your Internet Department?
WorkinTooHard asks: "Two years ago, I took the job of Internet Marketing Manager for a international company, with a crazy idea that I could convince senior management that the internet wasn't a fad. The only problem was that I didn't expect a (respected) mid-level manager to be the road block. We are in the middle of a major website redesign (the current site has not been updated in over 8 years) and everyone is asking why it takes so long to complete, and almost daily I have to explain that I do not have enough manpower. Of course, I can't prove ROI until the new site is launched (a great Catch22). How many people do you have working in/on your company's Internet/Intranet and Extranet sites and applications? How many full-time web-application developers, content providers, analytics people, UI designers, email marketing people, and so forth?"
"Please note that this includes anyone who works directly in building and maintaining your companies current website, electronic marketing and Internet applications. If you can, include the size of your company, number of employess, the number of active products being sold/supported, and how much outsourcing you do? The company I am currently working for has over 13,000 active products and over 30,000 products which need to be supported. We do no outsourcing, have over 900 employess in North America (over 8000 worldwide) and a total of 2 full time web developers, 1 part time developer/SQL guru and 1 content/data person as well as two people in our MarCom office which periodically write copy."
I'd be a little worried if I were asked to show the ROI of any web site that wasn't specifically for an on-line retailer. How did you show the ROI on a large, wooden, hand carved sign in the 1600's?
A web site (as simple or complex as it may be) is a marketing tool for a business. And anyone with an MBA or equivalent experience will tell you that developing an ROI on a marketing campaign is nearly impossible, at best.
As for "how many" developers it's going to take... Check out today's story, 60% Of Windows Vista Code To Be Rewritten, which has some great advice about how to get 9 women pregnant and have a baby in 1 month. (Or was that "getting 5 Jazz players pregnant"? I don't remember...)